Many different database systems exist that can aid one in searching through the history of stock market fluctuations. These systems permit one, for example, to request the value of a particular stock on a particular date. They permit one to ask to have plotted the fluctuations of one or more stocks over a particular range of dates.
It is also well known to provide a general purpose database system that includes a query language in which searches can be expressed in the form of a logical expression that utilizes AND and OR logical operators to conjoin various search conditions, several of which may relate to greater than or less than relations between algebraic expressions concerning the data. Examples of such systems are DBase III, Inmagic, SOL and PARADOX. Once a complex query is defined using the query formulation language of one these systems, the system typically provides for the construction of windows that prompt the user for the values needed to facilitate the evaluation of query. But systems designed for stock market research typically do not use windows to prompt the users through the construction of an entire query, particularly any general type of sophisticated query.
Using conventional systems and assuming that the necessary data is present within the system's database, it is always possible for a sophisticated programmer to come in and to design a database structure, a set of queries formulated in a formal language, and a set of reports similarly formulated in a formal manner, that can extract almost any kind of desired report from the data. However, the process of designing a particular query can be time consuming and expensive, since it typically requires programmer assistance. It is not something that can be done quickly and easily by a market trader or an institutional investment manager who is not skilled in programming.
Accordingly, a primary object of the present invention is to design a market information machine that permits traders and portfolio managers to pose sophisticated ad hoc queries against an extensive database containing historical stock, commodity, and economic data at a level that was previously not economical nor timely, so that high-level research can be performed quickly in a way that can substantially increase trading profits.